Maggot and Madman Ficlets
by Rose Moriarty
Summary: A disjointed collection of ficlets following the story "Maggot and Madman." Ficlets will be added whenever I feel like it and are about basically anything in the Maggot and Madman storyverse. These ficlets will be continued for an as-of-yet indefinite amount of time. Enjoy! :)


Strep

They're out on a case when John starts noticing the symptoms. A wheeze here, a cough here, and a skin tone a bit too pale for Sherlock's regular vampirical shade. He waits until the case is solved (he knows that if he stops Sherlock before he's figured it out, he'll be dealing with a squirming pile of whining detective for weeks) and then pulls him to the side as soon as they've left the crime scene.

"John–" Sherlock protests as his partner puts a finger to his mouth. He rolls his eyes impatiently. "We have to go with Lestrade to–"

"Absolutely not," John tells him. He starts doing up Sherlock's scarf more securely, although he knows that protecting him against the cold won't actually help anything. "We're going home and getting you in bed."

Sherlock groans. "Why?"

"Because you're sick, idiot." John sighs and turns to hail a cab as he speaks. "You've got a cold – might be strep throat, by the look of it. Luckily, your boyfriend is a doctor, so you might not even have to go to the clinic."

Sherlock moans and mopes the whole cab ride home about John never letting him do anything fun, but the fact that all his whining comes from where his head rests comfortably on John's shoulder and is punctuated by the occasional rasping cough sort of negates the point of the protests.

•••

John hates to admit it, but sick Sherlock – all wrapped up in a blanket, snuggled comfortably on their bed, with a mug of hot tea and honey – is actually pretty adorable. He chuckles at the thought; when they had first met, "adorable" was probably the last word John would have thought to apply to the detective. Nowadays, he uses it (either mentally or verbally) nearly every day.

Falling in love changes quite a few things about your perspective of a person – but then, John supposes, that's pretty obvious.

He's checked Sherlock's tonsils (swollen) and his throat (red as tomato paste) and his temperature (thankfully normal). He's whipped him up some hot noodle soup from a can and some herbal tea for his throat, gotten him into his pajamas and gotten him situated comfortably in bed. There's not anything else left to be done for him now, except take him into the clinic for a prescription of antibiotics tomorrow, since John is pretty positive it's strep.

After a moment spent watching Sherlock sip his tea in a resentful silence, John flicks his wings up a bit and lands a little clumsily on the other side of the mattress, sliding down to sit next to Sherlock. He kicks off his shoes and socks, flinging them across the room, and slips his feet under the covers, pulling the duvet up to his waist and turning in to Sherlock's chest. He slides an arm around his partner's waist and puts his head on his shoulder and breathes out a sigh of contentment.

Sherlock puts his arm over John's shoulders, using his other hand to sip his tea. He coughs a couple of times, wincing at the pain in his throat. "I can't imagine I'm much fun to be with at the moment," he says, by way of an apology.

John kisses the side of his neck. "I don't mind. I like taking care of you when you're sick – it's what I do. I _am_ a doctor, remember?"

"Of course," Sherlock responds, burying his lips in the frizz of John's hair.

John listens to his ragged breathing until he can't possibly stand it any longer. He pulls himself up into a sitting position, draping his legs across Sherlock's, and kisses him deeply.

After a hesitant second, Sherlock puts a hand on John's chest and pushes him away. "Don't be stupid," he scolds him. "You'll catch strep too, and then I won't have you to take care of me."

"Don't be silly, I can't catch it," John says, rolling his eyes, but then remembers that Sherlock sometimes needs these things explained to him. "We belong to different species, remember?" he says softly, smiling.

Sherlock blinks. "To be honest," he rasps, "I find myself forgetting that far too frequently."

Exactly the answer John wanted to hear. "Our bodies function a bit differently," he continues. "I don't catch the same sicknesses as you do. In fact, fairies tend to catch far fewer. I can't even remember the last time I was sick."

"So all of this," Sherlock says, waving his hand in John's general direction, "has just been a fancy way of saying that you can snog me all you want just now and, in fact, that's exactly what you're intending to do?"

John doesn't even bother to tame the grin on his face. "Read my bloody mind," he mutters, and pulls Sherlock's gaunt face down to meet his.

Somehow the tea ends up on the bedside table and Sherlock ends up on his back, with John sprawled over him and Sherlock's arms wrapped around his waist. John can't imagine that the slightly straining position feels very nice on Sherlock's swollen throat, but judging by the quiet sounds escaping Sherlock's lips as they kiss, he doesn't really mind. Lying here, on this bed, quite on top of one another, is the closest they've gotten so far to having sex, which sends John's mind off on a nearly endless trail of possibilities. But Sherlock has already explained his demisexuality and his preference to wait a while before becoming sexually intimate, which John is more than willing to accommodate. Growing up as a fairy, one learns that there is hell of a lot more to a relationship than sex – in fact, it's really only the human side of his physicality that ever really desires it. So if waiting is what makes the man he loves comfortable, John would happily wait years.

John's drifting thoughts start to dissolve as he loses himself in the loveliness of Sherlock Holmes' beautiful mouth. His heart is growing warm and he can practically feel the glow of lith energy that he knows must be radiating off of him like mad. He's almost completely lost himself in the sleepy movement of their lips and entangled limbs, and of Sherlock's long hands running themselves up and down the skin of his back underneath his jumper – as if he's in a dream he can't quite bring himself to believe in.

Then Sherlock's fingers brush quite solidly against the base of his wings.

The shockwave of physical reactions shoot through him too quickly to register whether they were painful or pleasing. He's not really thinking about it. He shoots upwards in an instinctive reaction, holding himself an arm's length above Sherlock's body, staring down at him in complete shock.

Sherlock stares back, horrified. "John…" he begins, unsure of where to go from there. "John, are you – I'm sorry, I didn't realize you didn't want to be touched there, I… I'm sorry…"

John lets him trail off. He probably should reassure Sherlock that he did nothing wrong, but his mind is elsewhere. It's scattering to places he never thought he'd revisit. He tries to calm his breathing – and his heartbeat – as he remembers.

•••

_He had fallen. Finally gotten caught in one of those telephone wires, just like his dad had always said he would. He hadn't gotten electrocuted – just tangled up and spat down towards the ground by those ruthless electrical cords. It had been a twenty-foot drop. Thankfully, he'd landed on a large pile of garbage bags (which stunk to high heaven but still broke his fall) and as he'd crashed down, he'd felt his left wing twist beneath him and fold like a piece of cardstock paper._

_Fifteen year old John Watson had trudged back to his house on foot, cradling his bent wing. By the time he showed up at his doorstep, his face was streaked with tears – whether from the pain or from the humiliation, it was hard to tell._

_His father had started telling him off but stopped when he saw the expression on John's face and the unnatural position of his wing. He had then lead him into the kitchen where his mother was waiting, warning John that he was going to get a real good scolding when he felt better._

_A few minutes later, Matilda had him situated on the couch sipping a cup of tea while she massaged a homemade balm onto his wing. Matilda Watson was a truly talented magician, and an even more spectacular herbalist. She knew the ins and outs of every botanical on the planet, and how their magical properties could be combined. She'd tried teaching both of her children the ways of herbology for years, but only Harry had ever excelled at it – John, being for all intents and purposes a magical dud, never really caught on._

_He could smell a few of the herbs that had been cooked into his mother's magical paste, which she was lathering gratuitously onto his wing; rosemary, mint, and lemongrass. There were some other scents he couldn't really place. It felt fantastic, though – the cool, refreshing feel of the lotion, and the softness of his mother's practiced fingers. It felt as though his very veins were soaking up the warm maternal love and filling his insides with a comfortable glow._

_"__You'll be all right," Matilda assured him a calm, steady voice. "It's just a little bend. It'll probably be gone by the time you wake up tomorrow."_

_John sighed but nodded._

_"__There." Matilda kissed him on the cheek and started closing the jar of healing balm. "All done. Feeling better?"_

_"__Yeah." John nodded, stretching his wing out, which still felt warm and tingly. "Loads."_

_"__Excellent." Matilda put the jar aside and picked up her knitting, which she always insisted on doing by hand, even though she was a master at simple telekinesis. "I'm glad you still let me touch your wings. Most teenagers your age have grown apart from their parents, and are far too sensitive for that."_

_"__Well you're the best mum ever," John told her. "And I love you a whole lot, so that's what makes it okay, right?"_

_Matilda smiled at him. "I'm glad you feel that way, John." She shook her head, going back to her knitting. "Even if you are a little reckless around telephone wires, I couldn't have asked for a better son."_

_She knitted in silence for a while. John fiddled with his thumbs, not really thinking of anything in particular. "Wings are a tricky business," she says after a while. "And John – you must be very careful about who you let touch them."_

_John raised an eyebrow. "Why?"_

_"__Because that's how we work," she continued. "Humans are lucky enough to have their centers of energy tucked neatly away inside their ribcage, where no one can get to it. But we aren't so lucky. You and I, quite literally, carry our souls on our backs."_

_John looked at the ground. He reached a hand behind him to feel the healing chitin, which still tingled from his mother's affectionate touch._

_"__If your wings are touched by someone you love dearly, such as a mother, a child, a sibling, a dear friend or a partner, the feeling can be excellent." She didn't look up from her knitting. "Anyone else touching them, however, is a horribly unpleasant experience. And if someone you hate touches them, it can even be dangerous._

_"__You must really be careful about who gets to touch them, John," she repeated. "When you let someone touch them… you let them hold your heart in their hands. And I'm sure you can see why that's dangerous."_

_"__Yeah…" John agreed._

_"__Someday," she continued, "I hope you find someone – a man or woman whom you truly love – and you let them touch your soul. But until you find this person that you are certain you want to spend the rest of your life with, don't let anyone touch them. Not if you can help it."_

_"__But how will I know?" John asked. He was genuinely curious. "What if I think this person is going to be perfect, and then I let them touch my wings, and then… they leave me?"_

_"__You'll know," Matilda assured him. "And believe me – if you've gotten that far in your relationship, you'll be spending the rest of your lives together without a doubt."_

_•••_

"John?" Sherlock asks again, and John shakes his head. The shock has worn off.

"I'm fine…" he mutters, bending down to kiss Sherlock again. "You did nothing wrong, love. Don't worry about it."

"You seemed like you were in pain–"

"Not pain, I was just startled." John lets himself down and lies on top of Sherlock's body, resting his head in the little space between his shoulder and neck. He would probably be crushing Sherlock's internal organs if he didn't weigh about as much as an eight-year-old. He closes his eyes. "I've never let anyone touch me there."

"Are they sensitive?" Sherlock asks, insightful as ever. John nods his head against Sherlock's neck by way of response.

Sherlock remembers the last time he touched John's wings – not with his bare fingers, but with a Swiss army knife. He shudders at the thought of John's screaming and gasping sobs. He wonders if touching John's wings now would produce a similar reaction.

John remembers something else.

•••

_He had been ready. At least, he had told himself that. As she had been stripping off her clothes and leaving them on the floor of his dorm room, radiating confidence and sexuality, John had been torn between being mindlessly aroused and being mindlessly terrified. He had supposed that a person's first sexual experience was probably like jumping off the high dive into a freezing swimming pool – terrifying as you stand on the edge of the diving board, exhilarating as you fall through the air, painful and freezing once you hit the water, but absolutely worth it once you're swimming in the pool. At least, he'd hoped it would be that way._

_Somehow, John had managed to keep his shirt and undershirt on during the whole process. To be honest, it was a little hard to focus on enjoying himself while being so ridiculously self-conscious of every time she put her hands against his back. At the end of it, when he fell back onto the bed facing the ceiling, and she cuddled up to him in a predictably clingy way, he reflected. It hadn't been bad at all – but it hadn't been particularly good. When he'd agreed to this, he'd thought it would really mean something; he'd been going out with Sheila for a good year now, and he really did feel something for her. But in the end, it hadn't really meant anything._

_As Sheila put an arm around his chest and started kissing his neck again, he realized that it would never mean anything until he could take off his shirt. Sex would never be meaningful or special to him as long as he did it under the masquerade of a human being – because sex is about being honest, isn't it? That's what it's really about, anyway – being exposed. Showing every last bit of yourself to another person and letting them have all of it._

_Because of his current position, he decided to put off caring for the moment and let his girlfriend snog him a bit before she left him alone with his depressing thoughts. It was the least he could get out of this._

_"__What did you think?" she asked with a smirk as he pulled himself into a sitting position and she straddled his legs._

_"__Good," he lied, as she kissed him. "Really weird," he added, which was the truth._

_"__Yeah, it's bound to be, on your first time." She ran her hands through his hair, which she knew he liked. "I thought it was weird, too, when I lost my virginity."_

_"__Virginity," John mutters in between sloppy kisses, "is a fictional societal construct designed to control the sex lives of young people, especially women. I don't really want to apply it to myself."_

_"__Oh, I love it when you talk smart to me, John Watson," Sheila chuckled, rolling her eyes as she put her arms around John's waist and slipped her hands under his shirt, feeling her way up his back–_

_John's eyes blew wide in alarm as he instinctively put a hand against her stomach to push her off of him, but it was too late. He felt her fingertips brush the edge of his wing. The shock of it snapped through his nervous system like a jolt of electricity. He tried to push her off without being too rough, but she stayed._

_Her eyes, which had been soft and sexual only moments before, were now furrowed and confused. She stared at him as he tried to remove her hands from his back. "What's this, John?" she asked, digging under his shirt and grabbing his wing._

_John cried out. He couldn't help himself. The feeling wasn't exactly pain, although there was a bit of that; it was intense discomfort, a sharp feeling of _wrongness_. He pushed her off of him reflexively, shoving her more roughly than he normally would have. He reached behind him, tugging his shirt back down, but it didn't matter. Sheila had felt it._

_"__What the hell have you got under there?" she asked, growing a little upset. She pushed him to the side and started tugging his shirt up over his shoulders. He cried out in protest and tried to fight back, but Sheila was on the wrestling team, and his efforts didn't do him much good. After struggling and a small scuffle, Sheila yanked the shirt off of his shoulders and forcefully turned him around, staring at his back._

_John could feel her eyes on him. He felt her hands recoil from his back and heard the sharp intake of her breath. When he turned around, she was staring at him with her hands on her mouth and a look of utter horror on her face._

_There was a long silence. John watched her, not wanting to speak. Thankfully, Sheila did it before him._

_"__What… the _fuck_…?" she gasped. She stepped off the bed and watched him from a distance._

_John cleared his throat. "I… can explain, it's not–"_

_"__Oh my god. Oh my fucking god." Sheila started putting on her pants and trousers as frantically as possible. "What the fuck _are_ you?"_

_"__I'm…" John didn't know what way he could put it to make it easiest for her to hear. "I'm me, I'm John…"_

_"__Oh my god, I _slept_ with you!" She fumbled as she tried to whip on her shirt as quickly as possible. John could hear the disgust flying off of her voice like shrapnel. "Oh my god, oh my _god…"

_He tried to clamber off the bed but stumbled in the messy sheets, falling over the side. His wings started buzzing instinctively to save his face from hitting the floor, and he fluttered to his feet. Sheila screamed._

_"__Sheila–" he began, trying to walk towards her. She shrieked and did something he really wasn't ready for: she hit him._

_Sheila had one hell of a right hook. He felt it connect with his jaw like a ton of bricks and send him whirling to the side. While he staggered to the ground, he heard a door slam a couple feet away from him._

_By the time he looked back up, Sheila was gone. She'd left her bra on the floor, along with her left sock. John probably would have laughed at that if he wasn't already crying._

_•••_

John stares at Sherlock. Sherlock can't tell what he's thinking, and John can't either, really. He hopes that words will just spring, impromptu, to his mouth – and then they do.

"Sit up," he says.

Sherlock doesn't hesitate to comply.

Once Sherlock is sat comfortably against the bed rest, propped up with a couple pillows, John straddles his thighs and sits down firmly in his lap. John kisses his forehead, then his nose, and then his mouth, lingering for a moment longer on the last one. He takes a gentle hold of Sherlock's hand and guides it back behind him, to a spot where Sherlock's fingers hover only a centimeter over the glassy chitin of John's wing.

John looks him in the eye and answers Sherlock's unspoken question by nodding. He kisses him softly to get the point across and leaves his head there, leaning gently on Sherlock's, mouths nearly touching. He waits.

When Sherlock trails his fingers lightly up John's costa, he feels for the second time that shock of intense feeling. This time, however the feeling is lingering instead of sudden, and he can really feel it – and it's _exquisite_.

"Is this okay?" Sherlock murmurs as his hand makes it all the way to John's pterostigma and then changes direction, caressing the transparent length all the way back to John's body.

John is too lost in Sherlock to say anything except his name, which comes out as a nearly unintelligible whisper. He can feel Sherlock, everything that he is, pouring into him one aching ounce at a time from their point of contact. From the look on Sherlock's face, the feeling goes both ways; Sherlock can feel John as well.

When Sherlock puts his other arm up and swipes both of his hands down the flat lengths of both of John's forewings, he feels every single muscle in his body relax into a state of blissful calm. He collapses, sagging into Sherlock's body and breathing him in. The feeling isn't sexual, but a highly pleasant mixture of physical and emotional ecstasy. John is drowning in love. He feels lightheaded with it. The feeling of _Sherlock_ flooding into his body is enough to completely overwhelm him – and if he died right now, in this very moment, he's not even sure he'd take notice.

"Mmf," Sherlock says, and John realizes he's trying to nudge him backwards. John lets Sherlock push him onto his back and climb over him, using his hands to spread out John's wings as he kisses him.

John never wants this moment to end. He wants Sherlock to understand everything John feels for him, the magnitude of it all, and now he's gotten his wish; John knows Sherlock can feel all of that for himself, just as John can feel Sherlock's love warming him up from the inside like a hot cup of tea and honey.

The kisses get slower and sleepier and eventually stop. Sherlock keeps his hand on John's wing as he lets his head fall to John's chest and lets his breathing slow. It takes John an embarrassingly long time to realize that he's fallen asleep, which is a little bit incredible, considering Sherlock's complete intolerance for the activity.

John chuckles a bit to himself and eventually drifts off as well, and they sleep there – diagonally, upside down, on top of the covers, John still in his day clothes – until 6 am when Sherlock has a terrible coughing fit and John has to run to make him more tea and check his temperature again. By the time he returns with the fresh mug, Sherlock has crawled underneath the covers and fallen asleep again. John joins him with a book and reads next to his sleeping partner until well into the midmorning, when Sherlock finally opens his eyes.


End file.
